Xiaomi's Redmi Note 4 is a turbo-charged Redmi Note 3. Should you be excited?

Xiaomi has been ridiculously busy off-late, launching one powerhouse smartphone after another.

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Saurabh Singh

New Delhi

August 26, 2016

UPDATED: August 26, 2016 15:13 IST

Xiaomi has been ridiculously busy off-late, launching one powerhouse smartphone after another. Mostly in China, but India has always been its proverbial second home. Quite obviously then, it can't afford to take it for granted. And it hasn't, mostly. Every time, the company sees a - noticeable -- lull of sorts here, it makes a comeback and how.

It launched the Redmi Note 3 in India in March. The phone is doing well for the company. On Thursday - Aug 25 - the company launched the Redmi Note 4 in China. It isn't exactly the successor to the Redmi Note 3 that came to India though. It is in fact successor to the Redmi Note 3, China specific variant that came with a MediaTek Helio X10 processor. In Xiaomi's defense, everything else, save the CPU remained the same in both the versions.

One look at Xiaomi's Redmi Note 4 and it is pretty evident that it is a turbo-charged Redmi Note 3. Take a look.

Design and build quality

The Redmi Note 4 marks subtle changes over the Redmi Note 3 in design. So subtle, that it's hard to tell between the two phones unless you're nitpicking. The Redmi Note 4 boasts of a full metal unibody, just like the Redmi Note 3, but unlike the latter, the former comes with prominent antenna lines on the back, and 2.5D curved glass on the front. The camera (and the dualLED flash) and the fingerprint scanner are in the same place, on the rear, but the speaker out has been shifted to the bottom.

The Redmi Note 4, if you were to observe carefully, looks more like the Redmi Pro, another Xiaomi power-house phone that comes with a dual-camera setup. The Redmi Note 4 also comes with a USB Type-C port for charging and data syncing purposes, just like the Pro. The weight and thickness are also more or less the same. The only difference is that in the case of the Redmi Pro, the fingerprint scanner lies on the front.

Xiaomi is maintaining a consistency in design language, across its entire smartphone portfolio over quite some time now, which isn't bad. Its smartphones look good, and they are equally well-built as well.

Display

The Redmi Note 4, like the Redmi Note 3 also comes with a 5.5-inch FullHD IPS display with a 1080x1920 pixels resolution.

Processor, RAM and connectivity

The Redmi Note 4 is powered by a 2.1GHz deca-core MediaTek Helio X20 processor with support for expandable storage of up to 128GB via microSD card. It will be available in two variants: one with 2GB RAM and 16GB memory, and another with 3GB RAM and 64GB memory.

The Redmi Note 3 which is sold in India is powered by a 1.8Ghz hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 processor clubbed with 2GB RAM/16GB memory and 3GB RAM/32GB memory. It runs on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop-based MIUI 7 out-of-the-box.

Camera

The Redmi Note 4 sports a 13-megapixel camera on the rear with f/2.0 aperture, phase detection autofocus and dualLED flash. There is also a 5-megapixel camera on the front. The Redmi Note 3 on the contrary sports a 16-megapixel camera on the rear.

Battery

The Redmi Note 4 is backed by a 4,100mAh battery which is bigger than the one on the Redmi Note 3 (4,000mAh). Fast charging is supported.

Price and availability

Prices start at CNY 899 (roughly Rs 9,000) and go all the way up to CNY 1,199 (roughly Rs 12,000). Both the variants will be available for buying in China, starting from August 26, via the company's online store, Mi.com. There is however no word on global availability and pricing for now.

Should India be excited?

Not really. Xiaomi isn't permitted to sell its MediaTek-based devices in India, due to an ongoing legal tussle with Ericsson. As things stand, the case is still in court and the company is in no position to make a comment, as long as the judgment is pending. We have reached out to Xiaomi for some more clarity on the issue, but the fact that the case is still in court means Xiaomi still cannot launch MediaTek-based devices in India. Only, its Qualcomm-based devices can come to India.

Remember, the Redmi Note 3 Helio X10 variant did not make it to India. The company later built a Qualcomm-based version, which then came to India. The same fate awaits the Redmi Note 4. India will have to wait for Xiaomi to come out with a Qualcomm-based Redmi Note 4 that could take at least a couple of odd months or more, going by Xiaomi's previous track record. The Redmi Pro, similarly, may never come to India, unless Xiaomi specifically builds a Qualcomm version of the same.

The Redmi Note 4 looks like a fantastic smartphone on paper. It's rocking MediaTek's latest and greatest chipset. There is a slight possibility that the Qualcomm version may pack a Snapdragon 820, you know, because that's Qualcomm's latest and greatest right now. Xiaomi however tells me that Snapdragon 820 would be overkill for most users. But then, the next-best, the Snapdragon 810 is infamous for its heating issues. According to Xiaomi, that would depend on the device, meaning, as long as the device has good thermal efficiency (through some kind on internal cooling process) the Snapdragon 810 can be tamed, for good. Will the Redmi Note 4 India edition come with Snapdragon 810, then? It's still too early to comment on that. India will have to wait and find out.

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